Source Filmmaker

Hello everyone. I'm a complete newbie at SFM so I apologize if it's just a case of me missing something really obvious, or if it's already been posted somewhere else. I couldn't find an answer anywhere.

I've followed the most popoular guides and I could successfuly import Dota 2 static models and their respective parts, but I can't seem to get their sequences to work at all.

As you can see here http://it.tinypic.com/view.php?pic=21c8sip&s=5#.UtVEXPTuLCs (Hoping external links are allowed and that I didn't goof miserably) the model looks fine but while I get the correct list of animations, I can't see the preview, and even if I try to import it regardless, it has no visual effect.

You did no mistake, that's normal. If I had those models handy I could look into potentially fixing those menus without altering the actual model's quality, but it's very unlikely.

Hm... perhaps a temporary version of the texture would be a viable workaround though, now that I think about it....... Let's see...

EDIT:

Oh, I know, you could try this: Find the material file (.vmt) the model uses, and make sure SFM cannot find it, either by renaming it or moving it. If I'm right, the model should become pink and black checkered, but it should also be visible in the preview windows. If that works, we can look into a more elegant workaround if you want.

Thanks for the great tip :) I will give it a go right now. I thought there was something wrong on my end because the guides I've followed seem to have completely functional preview windows.

My biggest concern though was that animations weren't playing at all in the main scene even if I selected a sequence, the model kept standing still, but now they're working. I have no idea what was wrong. So at least that's sorted out!

Yeah, it is a pain. The DOTA2 shader in the vmt (first line) is called CustomHero and should changed to vertexlitgeneric, even after doing that, the models remain invisible or slightly visible in the model browser.

@R234, I don't have problems with my install of Dota2, we'll have to wait for something from Lilyn Sen. Now that the DX80 and SW.vtx files are no longer required by SFM, a lot of the people that follow the Cyborg Matt tut are experiencing problems after running the .bat to create the missing files. This step isn't required anymore, but the rename of the CustomHero shader in the vmts to VertexLitGeneric still is.

Pretty sure $alphatest 1 is the cause of this. I bet commenting that line out would also fix the previews, though it might have a bit of an adverse effect on the model's appearance. Just not nearly as much as removing the whole material ;)

A very talented SFM user called BlueFlyTrap has been painstakingly updating all the DOTA heros for use in SFM, including higher res textures, I don't know if it would fix the transparent model viewer issue but the textures are far superior to what you get straight from the game: http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1300754

That definitely works, and I see no obvious differences in the actual model :)

Thanks a lot! It's definitely one of these moments when I wish I knew my way around these things better ^^

Hi Lylyn Sen,

It seems your problem has been resolved? I have exactly the same problem with you. I would appreciate if you could explain more clearly how did you fix these issues.

I simply opened the .vmt that caused the transparency with notepad and deleted the $alphatest 1 line. The vmt for heroes and their respective parts should all be in materials/models/heroes.

To find the one particular .vmt causing the problem I had to do a bit of trial and error by adding the suspect ones (example "vengeful skin color" "vengeful body color") and then see which one caused the change. Perhaps there is a more elegant way, but that's all I could do :)

A very talented SFM user called BlueFlyTrap has been painstakingly updating all the DOTA heros for use in SFM, including higher res textures, I don't know if it would fix the transparent model viewer issue but the textures are far superior to what you get straight from the game: http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1300754

I'm really glad someone has been working on high definition models. Sadly I won't be on a proper pc for 1-2 days so it'll take me a while, but I'll try them out! Thanks!